Economy

The World Bank After Wolfowitz: Harm Reduction By Mark Weisbrot This column was printed in the June 11, 2007 edition of The Nation. If anyone wants to reprint it, please let CEPR know, by replying to this message. When Paul Wolfowitz finally agreed to resign from the presidency of the World Bank, it seemed that all of Washington breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, the Bank board’s assurance that Wolfowitz acted “ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution” was hard for many to swallow. But as one Bank insider told the Financial Times, “It is terrible–but I guess that was the price to pay to get him out.” It was not just Wolfowitz’s role in arranging an overly generous pay increase and promotion for his girlfriend that lay behind his […]

May 21, 2007 7:00 PM The scandal over the salaries paid to World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz’s friends and lover opened the door to good questions about both the bank and its president. Wolfowitz’s resignation answered some of them, but one of the best questions of all has yet to be asked: is there a larger problem with an institution claiming to be “working for a world free of poverty” paying those salaries to anyone? The World Bank insiders who launched the scandal by revealing the annual salaries of Mr Wolfowitz’s domestic partner, Shaha Ali Riza ($193,590), and Bush Administration collaborators, Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems ($250,000 and $240,000 respectively), have not raised this question. That may be because the controversial salaries were not out of the ordinary. Ms Riza defended her pay as “quite common for World Bank staff […]

Debt Relief Cleared for Latin Nations Emad Mekay WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) said Friday it will cancel 4.4 billion dollars in debt and interest owed by five of Latin America and the Caribbean’s poorest countries. “This decision represents a historic opportunity for a fresh start for Bolivia, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua,” said IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno. The Washington-based Bank says its initiative involves scaling back 100 percent of loans outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2004. The freed-up money will be diverted for needed health care, education and infrastructure development in the impoverished region, it said. The agreement includes provisions that would also guarantee five other low-income countries — Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Paraguay and Suriname — access to 250 million dollars a year in easy-term loans. The IDB will forgive approximately 3.4 […]